Attempted damage control. Not buying it!
There is one simple response that I do not see anyone addressing. With all the back and forth about line of sight, slope of roof, should we take him out?, I have no orders, blah, blah, blah, how about this simple response? “We have a credible sighting of a possible shooter. Get the president out of there!”
To me, this seems like the proper response to all the civilian sightings. I mean what could it hurt if you pull the president out of there, and it turned out to be a false alarm? A lot better than what actually happened or what could have horribly happened.
That settles it. Not only did they have to deal with the perils of a roof sloped at about 18 degrees, they also had trees in the way! Clearly an impossible task for the Secret Service!
They keep calling it a blind spot, since when does security identify the best sniper position and then simply say, yep, that is ideal place for a sniper to shoot from but it is hard to see from where I’m standing right now, so just ignore that position.
CBS said that based on lines of sight at the Butler, Pennsylvania, venue where the rally was held, a tree near the building where Crooks positioned himself may have screened him from one of two sniper teams
If that is true, an advance was done on that venue, knowing where the sniper/counter sniper teams would be posted. Meaning that Crooks was not alone.
Part of that job, especially with the Secret Service and protection details, employs experience snipers that inspect the venues. Their job is look for the proverbial “if I was a sniper, that’s where I would shoot from”. Then they figure out where the counter sniper team is positioned or advice that static security is posted before the event and stays until principal, in this case Pres Trump, is in an armored vehicle and driving away.
Could be planned in attempt to kill him.
Or just abject incompetence, laziness and indifference to do their job properly.
“We’re in the Pennsylvania country. Nothing going on here. Don’t worry about it”.
Pres Trump would be much safer surrounded by old school street cops and some legit SOF fellas, ie Delta types that are used to doing stuff low pro
As soon as i turned the rally on i saw the perfect position for the SS to view almost the entire venue. A child could see it and would have positioned two SS agents there. That water tower loomed over almost the entire site. My first thought upon seeing that water tower was two poor guys had to haul all their equipment up there to observe. Nobody was up there. It is now a case of negligence and that is a crime!
And why is Cheatle being blocked from testifying to Congress, but goes on TV almost daily?
Failure? Or meticulously planned for the assassin to have cover while completing his task? No obstruction to field of fire, no bullet proof glass around President, no SS anywhere near roof, ladder conveniently placed, no communication to President, and the kid is able to lug around an AR-15 unnoticed…
One of the first things I learned as a Second Lieutenant is that when you are defending, get out and walk the terrain.
Look at the terrain from your potential adversary’s point of view.
Adjust your defense to what you find.
Do they not teach this to the Secret Service?
I’ll bet they do, and that’s why this incident really stinks.
The bosses let it happen.
The mechanics of being a sniper, and stopping a sniper, may be new to many readers. It is to me. However, the community has this down to a science. Assassination was encouraged by the press and other Democrats. The assassination was planned and enabled by people far more capable than the Thomas Crook.
Since they have already said there was supposed to be a local LEO team or at least officer on the roof (that did not show up for work), this tree thing is just more unintended consequence to poor management already demonstrated.
They couldn’t even get out of the area because they were BLOCKED IN!
“””CBS said that based on lines of sight at the Butler, Pennsylvania, venue where the rally was held, a tree near the building where Crooks positioned himself may have screened him from one of two sniper teams who were positioned to respond to threats such as the one Crooks represented.”””
WAPO published an animation yesterday to provide cover for the SS.
Until the EXACT positions of the shooter, the snipers, location of Trump’s platform, and distances are published, all this is claptrap by the media to provide excuses for their government masters.
Those italian cypress will stop ya every time.
Except the snipers who were inside the building, no, wait, they were in a different building, yeah, that’s the ticket, a different building, could have approached him from the rear and drawn his fire to the opposite direction of the stage. Maybe the coffee was still brewing. Or maybe they were waiting for the guy who called in sick to show up. /s I just don’t get it.
The tree was the least of their fai.ures. first and foremost was the failure to get pres Trump off the stage efore any firing took place, and second was the failure of the cop who was chased away by the perp pointing his gun at him.
The moment they saw the perp RANGE-FINDING the area, then climbing onto the roof (or vise-versa) they should have informed all the ss, who would have then surrounded pres Trump and moved him to safety-
That point can’t be stressed enough. There is no way pres Trump should have still been on that stage, unprotected! The ss were even behind him, sitting, while pres Trump was fully exposed to the building’s line of sight.
What happened was such a colossal failure that it stretches the imiganiation to that one must conclude that either the team was inept, or it was intentional.
The excuse that “the roof was slanted and” and that the director didn’t want her team on that roof is noses as the rooftop from which the ss snipers shot was sloped even more it looked like to me!
Supposedly the cops were to handle the rooftop for some unknown reason, so apparently it wasn’t too sloped for them to secure, but it was too sloped for highly trained ss snipers to deal with? Gimme a break!
The Secret Service had their man on the Roof for Ten Minutes before he fired at Trump. The Secret Service knew he was there for Ten Minutes. How the Hell did they leave Trump up on Stage?
It’s just a matter of time before the Secret Service starts using a solar flare excuse as an issue the sun caused the problem.
Don’t you believe it!